A. Chitose Airport
B. Toyota-Rent-a-CarC. Bibi Beef Restaurant
D. Lake Shikotsu
E. Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel
Our flight took us from Singapore to Chitose via Nagoya. Upon arriving at Chitose, we were transported to the Toyota-Rent-a-Car facility to get our rental car; a Toyoto Prius fully equipped with English-speaking GPS. Loved the license plate number 336-88-88.
First stop was for lunch, a 5-minute drive found us at Bibi Beef Restaurant. This beautiful log house, in lush greenery by a calm stream, was the restaurant. We had wagyu beef and grilled them ourselves right at our table.
The Bibi restaurant was in lush setting, with fir trees, wooden bridges... a very calm and picturesque setting.
Next stop - another picturesque environment - Lake Shikotsu. It is Japan's second largest caldera lake with a circumference of 42 km, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption about 32,000 years ago. With the average temperature at 3.6 degrees it is Japan’s coldest ice-free lake. Around the lake spread the deep green virgin forests of broad leaved deciduous trees such as maple and oak and conifer trees as Jezo spruce.
It was a misty autumn afternoon at Lake Shikotsu. The mist added to the beauty as the rich autumn colours graced the foliage by the lake.
A path at lake Shikotsu covered with autumn leaves.
Beautiful red and yellow maple leaves at Lake Shikotsu.
Our first hotel in this trip; Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel.
As it was getting dark, we rushed to our hotel; Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel. Our room floor was covered with tatami mats, a small square table in the middle of the room and floor chairs. Hmmm... where are the beds?
We heard about the technology in Japanese toilets so we had to determine if our hotel room's toilet was equally equipped. It was. Noticing the various buttons on a side panel we experimented. Trrust me... the aim was very accurate indeed! As we were late to join the rest of our group for dinner, we quickly changed to the traditional yukatas and made our way to the dining room.
Dinner was a Japanese set with lots of seafood; crabs, sashimi. It was nice to meet our fellow travellers over dinner too. Then a quick dip into the hotels onsen before retiring for the day. Yes, our first experience in a Japanese hot spring. A little intimidating at first, but you get over that quickly, scrub down while sitting on short stools and dipping into a couple of indoor and outdoor tubs. It was an incredibly relaxing experience.
Once back to our hotel room, the answer to our earlier question about our beds was answered. While we were at dinner, housekeeping folded out our mattressess to the tatami mats. It was either the comfortable floor arrangements, or the awesome dinner, or the relaxing dip in the onsen, or perhaps a combination of all, but we had a most relaxing and peaceful sleep that night.
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